Kent Bush: No limits to what people will do

People are crazy. Go ahead and pretend to agree with me as if you aren’t one of them, but I bet you are.

There is nothing people won’t do. It isn’t always everyone. But it is always someone.

I won’t wear contacts because I hate the idea of putting something in my eye – also because people tend to like me better when I cover as much of my face as possible.

In contrast, there is a woman in New York who is having heart-shaped pieces of titanium implanted into her eyeball.

Apparently it has been done dozens of times in Europe but she is excited to have a chance to do it here.

"It's going to be a conversation maker," says Lucy Luckayanko. "It will be unique. It will be sort of my unique factor. I'm excited about it. I liked the idea from the beginning. I was like 'Yeah, why not?'"

Let me answer that seemingly rhetorical question. Because you are putting metal in your eyeball. That is “why not” to do it.

Of course the doctor who is charging her $3,000 for the procedure said it was really safe and the risk of blindness is really small. Really?

But I bet that is still safer than eating cotton balls as a diet plan. Sure, I would love to lose weight and I could stop eating so much candy and ice cream and maybe eat a few meals that someone didn’t hand me through the window of my pickup and I probably would.

I love the prospect that one day the super filling liquids or fat burning pills will one day make me skinnier with no effort at all. I doubt it, but it could happen I guess.

But there are people – and by people I mean women – who are eating cotton balls dipped in orange juice as a way to feel full while dieting.

Believe it or not, some dieticians worry that the gastrointestinal distress this is likely to cause isn’t worth losing a couple of pounds that will only come back when the cotton ball diet ends.

People are eating orange flavored cotton balls and I get warned about the dangers of Diet Coke consumption.

My favorite example of the limits of insanity is the reaction to this week’s announcement about a ride actually named “insane” – it is actually Verruckt, German for insane. Insane in German is far more insane than normal American insanity.

The Schlitterbahn in Kansas City, Kan. – the good side of Kansas City – has constructed the moist mental health exam and they plan to unveil it in 2014.

Page 2 of 2 - People are expected to climb 264 steps for a chance to slide straight down a 17-story tall chute.

This ride answers the question we have all asked ourselves while driving down the interstate at 65 miles per hour: “I wonder what it would feel like to jump out of this car and into that shallow puddle?”

One of the owners said that safety was a top priority the park and safety was the top priority during the construction.

Of all of the times you have plummeted 17 stories, this will be the safest you have ever been.

We take our lives into our own hands every day. We share highways with people who text and drive. We assume that hamburger meat from the discount grocery store is actually at least part beef. We say “yes” when our wives ask us if those pants make her butt look fat.

But inserting metal in your eyeball, eating cotton balls and intentionally sliding off a 17-story tall platform into a pool of water are only slightly less risky than grabbing a tiger by the tail.

There have to be limits to what people will do. But we haven’t found them yet.

Kent Bush is the publisher of the Butler County Times Gazette and can be reached at: kbush@butlercountytimesgazette.com